One in 10 girls under 16 has potential cancer virus

Wednesday 19 September 2007 11.34 EDT
First published on Wednesday 19 September 2007 11.34 EDT

At least 10% of girls in England have been infected by the age of 16 with the human papilloma virus, which can cause genital warts and cervical cancer, health officials said today.

The study by the Health Protection Agency, which monitors infectious diseases in the UK, comes after government health advisers recommended vaccinating pre-pubescent girls against the sexually transmitted virus.

The agency tested blood samples from 1,483 girls and women aged 10-29 years for types of the virus that can cause genital warts and cervical cancer.

The results, presented at the agency's annual conference in Warwick today, showed that the risk of infection rises sharply from the age of 14.

Presenting the findings, Dr Andrew Vyse, of the HPA, said: "This study gives us vital information about how common HPV infection is in young women of different ages."

But he cautioned that more research was needed to "learn more about the risks of infection and of the risks for persistent infection and progression to cancer".

Juliet Hillier, of the sexual health charity Brook, said the findings demonstrated "a real need to improve education and prevention programmes which target young people".

She said: "The government must urgently implement a vaccination programme for girls and boys before they become sexually active and ensure resource is available to do so."

A separate study published by the Health Protection Agency today said up to 70% of cases of cervical cancer and 95% of cases of genital warts in men and women could be prevented by setting up a national HPV immunisation programme.

The lead researcher Mark Jit said: "The benefits to health would be worth the cost of vaccination if our model assumptions are correct."

The Department of Health said in June that a HPV vaccine for girls aged 12 to 13 in three doses over a six-month period would cost around £300.

Its agreement "in principle" to providing the jab followed a recommendation from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

The jab would not be compulsory but would be offered to girls in all parts of the UK.

There are two HPV vaccines that could be used in an immunisation programme: Gardasil, made by Merck and Sanofi Pasteur, and Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline.

HPV jabs have been approved in dozens of other countries, including the US, Canada and Australia.

If a vaccination programme was introduced, cervical smear testing would need to continue for the foreseeable future, partly because the jab only protects against the two most common strains of HPV, which account for 70% of cervical cancers.

Each year around 2,800 British women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and more than 1,000 die from the disease.

Around 200,000 women a year also have pre-cancerous changes to their cervix picked up through smear tests. Some HPV infections can cause cervical cancers in women and genital warts in both women and men, although most infections with HPV cause no symptoms and clear on their own.